Fibre

Fibre is a type of carbohydrate that helps keep your digestive system working properly by keeping food moving through it. Fibre is sometimes known as roughage or non-starch polysaccharide (NSP).

We get fibre from a variety of foods including vegetables and fruits such as carrots, potatoes, beans, broccoli and peas, apples, raspberries, strawberries, bananas, plums and prunes.

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We also get fibre from seeds, lentils, nuts and beans and whole grain foods like wholemeal flour, bread, pasta and rice.

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Eating lots of fibre in our diet is essential for us to stay healthy. If we don’t it could lead to constipation and other serious health problems such bowl and colon cancer and high blood pressure and heart disease.

Government guidelines recommend that an average adult should take in 30g of fibre every day.

 As fibre makes people feel fuller for longer young children need less of it as the full feeling could stop them eating other foods that contain important nutrients.

This video explains the role of dietary fibre in our diets.